High compatibility with OSR games. If you have a library of OSR bestiaries, adventure and spell books, little or no conversion is needed to use them with Knave.

Fast to teach, easy to run. If you are introducing a group of new players to OSR games, Knave allows them to make characters and understand all the rules in minutes.

No classes.Every PC is a Knave, a tomb-raiding, adventure-seeking ne’er-do-well who wields a spell book just as easily as a blade. This is an ideal system for players who like to switch up their character’s focus from time to time and don’t like being pigeonholed. A PC’s role in the party is determined largely by the equipment they carry.

Abilities are king. All d20 rolls use the six standard abilities. The way that ability scores and bonuses work has also been cleaned up, rationalized, and made consistent with how other systems like armor work.

Optional player-facing rolls.Knave easily accommodates referees who want the players to do all the rolling. Switching between the traditional shared-rolling model and players-only rolling can be done effortlessly on the fly.

Copper standard. Knave assumes that the common unit of currency is the copper penny. All item prices use this denomination and approximate actual medieval prices.

A list of 100 level-less spells.

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License: You are free to share and adapt this material for any purpose, including commercially, as long as you give attribution.

Designer commentary. The rules include designer comments explaining why rules were written the way they were, to aid in hacking the game.

Source text. When you purchase this game, you also get a copy of the Word document I used to make it. Edit it to create your own custom Knave ruleset! (You will need the free fonts Crimson Text and Sebaldus-Gotisch to display it properly).

This is my new go-to rpg for OSR gaming, because it can handle any OSR adventure written for any OSR system without any conversion stress. Also, characters are easy to create very quickly (six minutes to create my first character) and there's no headaches when leveling up. So happy to have discovered Knave!

November 24, 2018 2:58 pm UTC

This has become my default system. It's exactly what I want—it's built on the foundations of old school games, but also benefits the refinement and growth that has occurred over the decades. Simple, consistent, easy to learn and run, and 100% compatible with all the great OSR material out there.

I find it especially well-adapted to play-by-post, too.

Georg MOctober 17, 2018 12:03 pm UTC

PURCHASER

I want to express my utmost gratitude for having this now in my library. This is a superb piece of work, as Craig (below) said. I totally see the possibility of doing a Knave hack for my game-in-development Coldville (set in the 1980s in a rural mining town, it's a Thriller/Mystery game, very dark and bloody, and I never finished it, sadly. I think the Knave treatment would be an excellent format for that game). Knave is definitely on my list for running sometime.

Craig ASeptember 23, 2018 2:53 am UTC

PURCHASER

I just want to congratulate Ben on a superb piece of work. It is concise, very playable, with a lot of attention to layout. This is by far the best small price purchase I've had on Drive thru RPG.

September 21, 2018 3:10 pm UTC

To the Creator: Is there anyway to put up a PDF of the Character sheet you showed in your review? A PWYW of it for us players? Thanks.

Ben MSeptember 21, 2018 8:35 pm UTC

PUBLISHER

The character sheet PDF is included in the files you receive when you purchase Knave.

Jeremy HSeptember 06, 2018 2:23 am UTC

PURCHASER

Will this see the same booklet treatment as Maze Rats?

Matt COctober 01, 2018 2:14 pm UTC

Yes, please, Ben.

Brett MSeptember 05, 2018 3:00 am UTC

PURCHASER

I think something's up with this product. I bought it (even though I'm a Patreon member) to leave a review and it won't let me post one. Is there a time limit of some kind that I need to wait?

Brett MSeptember 05, 2018 12:45 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Problem resolved itself. I think there was some kind of time limit after all. Probably to prevent bots or something

Christopher BSeptember 02, 2018 11:30 pm UTC

I acquired Knave through joining Questing Beast's Patreon account as a paying supporter, so I cannot leave an official review on DTRPG, so I am leaving my comment hear. Knave is a really clever, creative, highly adaptable game that can easily be used with any OSR campaign. A lot of thought and play testing went into the final product. It is an excellent value. (And for the "cheapies" out there, yes, it is 7 pages, but it is 7 pages of dense quality content that was methodically created over a long period of time with a good amount of player community input. This is not something that was thrown together. I have made a lot of purchases on DTRPG and spent more money on products that offered more pages but gave me less quality content--a high page does not mean you get high value).

Knave is my favorite system for
1. Running a one-shot with full OSR adventure compatibility.
2. Running games for newbies and those who are intimidated by crunchy rules with full OSR
compatibility.
(Note: Into the Odd is my alternate favorite for both of the above when I'm creating most of the content myself (with lots of help from Chris McDowall's fantastic blog, which is a great resource even if you don't run his game.)

It would be excellent as a primary system, even for running a gigantic campaign in, but I happen to already be using the GLOG for that.

* Knave has one of my favorite spell lists ever. Wonder and Wickedness is a better cohesive list
of level-less spells, but the one in Knave is great if you want short, simple spells and don't
want spell schools.

* Knave does not have classes. It does have a very limiting...See more inventory/encumbrance system. This
means that players specialize by choosing what to carry rather than being permanently stuck
with their class choices.

* Questing Beast (aka Ben Milton) designed Knave with a focus on inventory management,
classlessness, OSR compatibility, and simplicity of rules. He also designed it to be easily
hacked.

* Knave uses a weird, neat Saving Throw system that replaces skill checks. All successful rolls
must exceed 15 on a d20, so the GM must call for them responsibly and players must beware
risky choices.

* Knave is 7 pages long, but it feels as if it manages to do everything necessary for the real oldschool experience, not just a modernized rules-light system that is missing major aspects of "OSR play."

(By the way, this is how Ben Milton defined OSR once, and I generally agree:
"The more of the following a campaign has, the more Old School it is: high lethality, an open world, a lack of pre-written plot, an emphasis on creative problem solving, an exploration-centered reward system (usually XP for treasure), a disregard for "encounter balance", and the use of random tables to generate world elements that surprise both players and referees. Also, a strong do-it-yourself attitude and a willingness to share your work and use the creativity of others in your game.")

The system is extremely pliable and ready for hacking, and I'm keeping up a megapost on hacks. Please submit whatever ideas/links you have!

It looks good, from the sample, my biggest issue keeping me from buying it is page count and price: I can't justify spending almost 3 dollars ( soon 4 dollars) on 7 pages.

Michael BSeptember 01, 2018 4:57 pm UTC

That seems perfectly reasonable, but let me explain what you're paying for. Ben found a way to make a BETTER OSR game than many of the larger books fit into 7 pages so you don't have to work as hard to have an excellent B/X-like experience. It's light, but it has everything you need, and no one else has done this so well before without removing compatibility with other products/blog posts/etc.

And if you find yourself wanting anything that's not there, it's incredibly easy to alter to suit your purposes. I've been posting lots of ways to do that here: https://buildingsarepeople.blogspot.com/2018/08/knave-mini-review-hacks-additions-and.html

ANARIS SAugust 31, 2018 4:45 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Hi, this is a great basic rules toolkit. It is simple, elegant and efficient. If you want to introduce somebody to adventure roleplaying games is probably one of the best options out there. I will be using it as the basis of my own games and adding non-numerical talents and other things that my gaming group likes.

Jacob VAugust 31, 2018 2:57 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Idea for alternate alignment:

Good, VAIN, Evil.
Vanity covers a lot of ground and clarifies what is meant by "neutral."

I feel that Law and Chaos should be cosmic||magical forces, not alignments.
Balancing them is something that mortals attempt, and the general result of existence.

I switched from Pathfinder to 5E D&D because I love how simple and flexible it is. It allowed me to share the hobby with a lot more people in my life because it was less intimidating and confusing and generally overwhelming. But that being [...]

I ran my first session of Knave last week. I've been DMing a 5e campaign for over a year and wanted to try something a little simpler. Character creation is really easy and fun, combat was fast and brutal, and we didn't have to spend half the session [...]

A skeleton Alternative PC System suitable for use with your entire OSR library. The game doesn't have classes. What differentiates one character from another is the gear the character hauls into the dungeon. Each item in the character's kit take [...]

There's really nothing too special about Knave. But it's because of this that it might just be one of the greatest additions to the OSR that I've ever seen. A lot of brilliant OSR games out there do one of three things: emulate the wheel, attempt to re [...]

When I saw author Ben Milton's g+ posting about his game I was intrigued and so spent a small fraction of my treasure hoard on this gem. And that is what it is! Having only just downloaded and read the game I’ve not played it yet, but reading it thro [...]

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